Nesting? Adding Adventure to our lives RIGHT before adding a baby? Trying to induce labor by stressing mom out? I'll let you be the judge of that. Here are some of the minor and major home improvement projects we have started and completed over the last month. These are in any particular order, and keep in mind, these are NOT all of them. There are some projects that just aren't done yet, but are close. Also keep in mind that I was the one with the camera, so even though I'm not pictured, I did participate. Okay, all my disclosures are done... lets see what's been going on.
The first project was the result of knowing we will have a new baby coming soon. See, I have 3 dressers, one for each child. But, soon I will have another baby and I had NO WHERE to put his clothing. The ideal location would be to use the dresser that also serves as a changing table. Unfortunately, that's where Oliver's clothing is. Also, the room that Oliver and the new baby will share is very small and doesn't have wall space for another dresser. I decided that I would have to put a dresser in the closet. The only dresser that is small enough to fit into that closet is the one that Noelle has used over the last two years. So... what will Noelle use? Then I remembered, I have a larger dresser in the office. The kicker is... every drawer was completely full of office supplies, craft supplies, electronic supplies, and old school supplies. I even found some of my school papers from 2004 in there. It wasn't a small assignment, cleaning out this dresser. It took me the entire day to clean it out and find a home for everything. When I was done, I had an empty dressers, and two cupboards full and organized with craft supplies (all children's supplies. I stock up at back to school every year... clearly).
But the dresser still wasn't ready yet. Apparently most of the drawers were falling apart. Perhaps I abused too much with all that stuff in it. It wasn't right away that my dresser problem was solved... so we will skip to the next project that was started: Painting our house.
Here is a before.
The painting of our house has been something we have discussed for quite some time (years even). I did very minimal work on it, mostly just picking out the colors and helping hold things. Brandon calked it and fixed things that needed to be done prior to painting. The real hero and artist was our good friend, Joe Fairchild. He has done an amazing job and spent so much time away from his family to do this for us. Oliver looks forward to seeing him every day and screams "Brother Fairchild!!!" repetitively when he shows. It is really sweet, but I'm sure it gets a little annoying. Brother Fairchild doesn't seem phased by this though. He is a great person and just smiles and greats Oliver with love. He is amazing. The after pictures are yet to come, as I seem to have uploaded everything by date of picture taken.
The next project was a complete surprise to me. In fact, if I had known, I probably wouldn't have swept and mopped nor vacuumed that day! Brandon and his brother put in all new doors and floor boards throughout the entire house. We are talking 7 new doors and new floor boards in the master bed room, hall, kitchen, and living room. At one point, I had major renovations going on inside my house and major painting going on outside. That was a fun day. ;) Here are some pictures:
The hallway
The master bedroom.
Part of the living room
Some of the finished doors and floor boards in the hall.
My next surprise happened the following weekend, which just so happened to be last weekend. Brandon came home Friday night, ready to paint our room. Painting our room resulted in the master bed laying in the living room for 3 days, doors in the hall and kitchen, furniture in the middle of the bedroom (with no door to keep children out), box springs in the hall, and the bed frame outside. This is the period of time where I lost the most sleep! Brandon and I painted Friday night until around 1 am. Then Oliver was having nightmares, and we ended up not getting good sleep the rest of the night. Saturday was spent trying to keep the kids out of our room. We did some fun things out and about. Saturday night, Brandon painted while I read and talked with him (I was tired and sore from the night before). It was definitely faster when the two of us worked together. He was really sweet to do everything by himself that night. Sunday was a bit crazy, trying to get ready for church without a bedroom and with the bed taking up the entire living room, but we made it work. After church, the girls got to do this:
while Oliver took a nap. I thought, for sure, that the girls would fall asleep in our bed. Turns out I was wrong. I ended up falling asleep on the couch behind them, and then ended up playing outback with Brandon. So much for that dream, right? Sunday night, Brandon finished the little bit that was left on the trim around the ceiling and I got my room back Monday night (after the kids were in bed). Here is a picture of him painting a little on Saturday.
On Saturday, I also got him to fix 4 of the 5 broken drawers for that dresser I was telling you about.
And I also got him to cut and hang a book shelf I have been "nagging" him to hang for the last several months. This is in the girls' room. I also have one for the boys' room. It won't hold a lot of books, but give them some to choose from where they can actually see the book and not just a stack on a typical book shelf. I'm excited about this.
Here is a picture of Oliver taking advantage of the fact that daddy has all the drawers to the dresser out back.
Yesterday (Monday) while Brandon was at work, I finished my "dresser project". Though I don't have any pictures, it is done. I emptied out the littler dresser that had Noelle's clothing in it and temporarily put it into my room. Then I pulled the drawers from Melanie's dresser and moved it across her room. Next was the really fun part. I "carried" the largest dresser from the office/ toy room, across the toy room, kitchen, and hallway to put it in the girls' room. I ended up having to carry it the entire way because when I started dragging it, the bottom left foot fell off. That was exciting. So, then I got to play Ms. Fix-It. I repaired the dresser (probably a temporary fix until it needs to be moved again) and then moved Melanie's dresser next to it. It makes Melanie's dresser look really small. This didn't sit well with little Mrs. Red. Poor girl. And it doesn't help that Noelle keeps saying "I love my new big dresser". We did come to an understanding that the amount of clothing that she has hasn't changed. And the reality is, Noelle is only using 3 of the 5 drawers as the bottom drawer is still broken and Noelle is too short to use the top drawer. Eventually, Melanie decided she was okay with this.
When Oliver woke from his nap, I finished up by moving the little dresser into his closet and moving his close over. Now the baby has his own dresser, full of clean baby boy clothing! Hooray for small or, in my opinion, large victories.
And speaking of victories... here is an after picture of my bedroom:
Of course, now I have to figure out how to decorate it. The curtain I had didn't match anything so I'm not putting it back up, and I don't know what I want to put on my walls. Time to think!
And another victory... our house! Doesn't it looks really nice?
I am so grateful and feel so blessed to have had so many things start and finish. It really is nice to have these things done, even if my stress level has been out of this world. Now I have 3 more major projects that I would like to get done before this baby comes... but I'll settle for 2 of them. I better get cracking, as I have less than 2 weeks until my due date!
A special thanks again to Joe Fairchild, My brother in law, Bart Smithson, his son, Brisbane, and (of course), my amazing husband, Brandon Smithson.
